58 
And wild roses, and ivy serpentine, 
With its dark buds and leaves wandering astray ; 
And flowers azure, black and streaked with gold, 
Fairer than any wakened eyes behold. 
We find Shelley, too, lavishing words of praise and fondness 
on the daisy. How exquisitely descriptive is the epithet 
“ ])earled Arcturi of the earth, the constellated flower that 
never sets;” the association of true and beautiful ideas is the 
happiest that can be conceived in so few words. The pearl¬ 
like whiteness of the flower; the name “Arctini,” from the star 
Arcturus, which is always visible to our hemisphere, as the 
daisy is ever in bloom; and the tenn “ constellated flower, ’ 
so beautifully realizing the starry groups in which they 
are seen clustering together, are ideas as truly as they are 
poetically emblematical of the subject. 
Primroses and cowslips have ever been in high favour with 
the sovereigns of song. The Swedish name of the former, maj- 
nycklar, or the key of May, is very characteristic of the sud¬ 
den arrival of Summer in high latitudes. The primrose comes, 
and, as if it unlocked the treasure-house of earth, all the other 
bright gifts of the season follow close upon it. In Beaumont 
and Fletcher’s Bridal Song of Theseus and Hippolita, we find 
among “ Nature’s children sweet,” 
Primrose, first-born child of Ver, 
IVIerry Spring-time’s harbinger. 
With her bells dim. 
And Henick celebrates their meek, young beauty in one of 
his most musical, melancholy strains : 
